It looks like I'm going to have a lonely duckling.

[naturemom]

Of my 6 Welsh Harlequin eggs only 2 made it to day 25 (not too bad for shipped eggs) and now it's day 31 and one has pipped and is starting to zip, but the other one isn't doing anything. Any tips on keeping a lone duckling happy? I'm going to hatch some more ducks, but of course that will take a while, and then the new ones will have to get older before I can put them together. Should I get it a duck diaper and keep it in the house? Put it where it can see the chickens? Something else?

 

[bwhite28]

I had only one duckling hatch myself earlier this year. That ducks went crazy for the first four days its was alive. It was cherping at the top of its lungs and running back and forth and jumping all over the place. Poor baby. I went to a local feed and farm store and bought another and she instantly stopped cherping and they have become the best of friends.
The owner of the store said that ducks are very social animals and that they should not be kept by themsleves.

I would put a diaper on it if its in the house beacuse they cant be "potty trained" beacuse of the way they are designed, they can't hold it. When they gotta go, they gotta go.

You may be able to keep it calm if you put it where it can see your chickens or mix him/her in with baby chickens if you have any. Hopefully all of that was a help. Good luck with your duck.

 

[naturemom]

Our local feed store doesn't have any ducklings. Guess I'll set something up next to the chicken tractor when it's old enough to go outside, and tell those eggs to hurry up and grow! In the meantime, it's getting lots of attention from my kids. My 2yo keeps insisting that the baby duck is crying and it needs her.

 

[dangerouschicken]

Maybe you can put an ad on Craig's List to see if someone else has a baby duck to be its friend.

 

[robinaggie]

Does your newspaper have a farm section? Look there, or post a wanted ad, for another duckie.

 

[naturemom]

OK, I've posted an ad on Craigslist, and one here. I've never seen a farm section in any of our local papers, which isn't surprising considering that I live in the suburbs (although I'm far enough out that there are actually a lot of farms). Maybe in the next couple days I can check some other feed stores, but AFAIK they only have them in the spring. I hope something turns up, because at this point thing don't seem to be going well with my next setting of eggs either.

 

[menageriemama]

We had a singleton duckling for a bit, and I put my runt guinea keet in the brooder with it. They loved each other! But if your local feed store doesnt have ducks, it may not have keets either...

 

[naturemom]

They don't have any birds for sale at all